How Continental & Good Year are Navigating the Tubeless era.

We sit down with Rob, who represents both Continental and Good Year bicycle tyres in the UK. We ask about the feedback he is getting from riders, how experiences vary depending on region, rider and conditions. We then tackle the hookless pressure subject and the ISO and ETRTO Safety factors regarding running tubeless and hookless designs. They are both changing the markings on their tyres to help consumers navigate the new tech and make sure any rider gets the right tyre.

TSS = Tubeless Straight Side
TC = Tubeless Crochet

Finally we discuss how pro teams are approaching the tech in their never ending quest to go faster.

Today we are joined by Rob, representing Continental and Goodyear, a pretty weird combination to represent two tire brands. But thought while he’s here? Visiting the shop would grab Rob’s attention and ask him some really good questions about the road bike tires we’re coming to road bike season now before we get started, Rob.

I just want to make sure our audience understands that this isn’t shilling or sponsored or anything like that because we sell Pirelli all at Pirelli’s, we sell Vittoria lots of our customers sell Victoria’s. We also sell Michelin. We’re one of the few shops that sell Michelin. I like these.

Not a very versatile tire, but they’ve they’ve got that point. But we’re going to be talking today about your brands, Continental and Goodyear. So just can you help Ortiz out? Why do you represent to competing brands? I work for a company called Cameroon Tires. Yeah. We our history is with motorcycle tires.

Yeah. And we represent quite a lot O’Briens. So we’ve dealt with clumsy for a number of decades. And the opportunity to take on Goodyear came up about 18 months ago when we jumped at the chance. So we’ve got a long history of Continental. Goodyear is relatively new to us.

It was you that actually engineered us to have the opportunity to test the Goodyear’s Mickey Mouse. I give this a go. Have you seen that review? I was really, really impressed with them today. I’ve got loads of questions. Well, around around all this.

And I’d start off with the reviews that I’ve given both of these tires on the challenge before. Just get your reaction of that, if you like. So in the past, we stock companies are probably one of the best selling tires in the road bike market. It’s one of those tires where

If you’re your Challenger Club mates and they said, What tire should I get on? Actually, it probably started with the 4000 that was the legendary tire. Yeah, maybe even the 3000 before it. Yeah. Yeah. That’s going back a while. And then when the 5000 came. Unsure.

Do you think it’s gained legendary status yet. Well, get getting there. I think tires are one of those things that people get very happy and comfortable with and they don’t really want change. But for performance gains in every metric you would use to measure time, there has to be a change.

You can’t just do a mach two and mark three at the same time. CONTENTO Actually took quite a long time to get onto the cross market, didn’t it? Tubeless They were probably the last last two. And then, of course, then followed very soon after. Come here, a very big company. They’re very cautious.

They like to do things right and they’re happy to be late to make sure the product is right, because I think I remember almost we got involved with Pirelli because we started to get customers come to us asking for a hopeless, safe tire. And Pirelli were one of the best at the time.

And we’ll almost go and rob when you when a Continental get a launch. Yeah. The golfer needed to go up the got there and you’ve got the steel now which is a a fantastic tire probably bestseller in the UK range. Yeah.

I mean for a performance race tire that’s still got some decent puncture resistant it’s one of the best sellers. Yeah. So going back to my review of this, I always take the fresh out of the box. These are fantastic. Yeah.

You get them out of the box, you feel like you’re the world’s best robot, right? You can nail every tire they fit amazing out of the box. And for me, they always citizen. You wear out, they do well on time. But that feeling of, like, total control you get on that box

Fresh for me seems to degrade quite disappointingly. Quickly, perhaps. Is that your experience was reporting that, or am I just like a review of one account as my personal experience that of what the feedback we would get from teams very often is that even when the tires are kind of past

The point where they still should be raced on, there’s still quite a high performance away from the tire. I think there’s there’s so many things that can influence the performance of a tire, and it’s very personal to the individual user, whether it be a positive or negative. Yeah.

So the road surface could have been anything through that. We have cooperative roads in Cumbria. It can make a huge difference and obviously probably over the transition between you starting to use some of all the product, there’s been a huge shift in what bikes will take in terms of sizes.

There’s been kind of a generational shift in what the materials can be used to make a tire out of. So there’s there’s been a lot of changes in a very short space of time. Yeah, that is true. Actually. We we’ve gone from entire works very quickly from 26

To 8 thirties thirties and out easily our bestselling Yeah. Size again. Does that reflect what you’re saying. I think for tubeless customer the throw is probably the optimum all round size Before you start getting into specialty areas we’ll probably see this this season coming in.

That will be a lot more acceptance from that size. I’d say four in achieves generally speaking that customers still on rim brakes so whether they want the tubes or not, the rim brake calipers often dictate the size of the tire for them. Yeah, such as? True. You’ve got a customer downstairs right now.

He’s bought some wind space wheels and they’re just way too wide. The calipers just don’t open enough and are that you know somebody didn’t think about what he brought the by space. How much are calipers actually open. Yeah yeah

This is going to be a very big cycle of that move on quickly to the Eagle F1. Yes these are the tires that you said. I honestly hadn’t really looked at Goodyear Tires for a long, long time. I’ve been riding these now for a year.

They gave me and they’re almost worn out now. They’ve had been on various different bikes, not been tested, michelins and all sorts. I’ve been really impressed with them. I don’t think they are as really reassuring a grip as a continental when they’re brand new. I don’t think they’re, as gave them.

The Michelin emissions are fantastic in the dry, the terrifying in the way even they’re like anyway. But they do seem to be very consistent. They seem to be give a very consistent feel, whether it’s down road, a dry road when the half wore and pretty worn,

Whether you’re slightly over pressure under pressure, they seem very adaptable. Yeah. Again, what’s what’s your take on it? I mean they’re the best ones I’ve been using on one of my bikes as well. And having only ridden clumsy road tires for a very long time, it’s obviously

A bit of a shock to the system when you’ve got to try another type of product everyone in the office has just been blown away by the performance of the tire. Yeah. And what was so 15 quid shaping out there than the Continental?

So how is that skewed how your approach in selling them? This is obviously one of your flagship products. And this is like another flagship product, but it’s £15 cheaper. I think you kind of divide the tire customers into two categories than what you see in the shop. Whereas generally speaking, roadies

Tend to veer towards coffee and Vittoria and they will come in and say, I’m either of course a professional or I’m a GP 5000 fan, and it’s very difficult to sway them between to two brands there is also a group of customers who have a ceiling they’re willing to pay in price

Obviously to get this kind of insane level of performance. It comes with a cost, but you can be very close behind for what, £15.50 miles less. And obviously, like anything, being white, the more you’re trying to achieve, the more it costs very little incremental changes.

You know, the sharp end of the logic, I mean they argue and very expensive now and a yeah £8 for a road bike tire Yeah one one argument I would always offer back for that is pre-COVID anyone who was maybe racing or this product was the amateur,

They almost certainly would have been on tubeless. The equivalent tubular is now £150. So yeah, as horrible as it sounds, relatively speaking, they are truly cheap to what a lot of people would have ridden four years ago. I think we’re all collectively aghast

At how much they cost with petrol of car tires. Yes. What would be your response to that you don’t drive to the shops on a Formula One tire, The GB 5000 is what the world to a riders use. Yeah, whatever other brands top end it’s what has raced bicycles equivalent of Formula one.

If you went down your local tire fit in by and said certainly some Formula One tires you probably wouldn’t have much change out of £15,000 for four new tires. Yeah so it’s it’s all relative. And I think most people’s only other interaction with tires in the car.

For most people, the car is their box that gets them about. They don’t want it to perform. They just want it to be safe. I guess what you see though, when you see the way that cognitive dissonance is, is when you see about a car tire, it’s massive. Yeah.

And you see this and like, Yeah, well, where is it? Where’s is it all in compounds and chemicals that go into it to provide that grip? Is that where the cost what we like just I would say a lot of it obviously the materials you will the best of materials be it

The raw ingredients that go into the rubber or the finest material that you can put in the carcass. Yeah. The also, if you think you you have this very, very small, thin tire that has to retain air. And if you have a tire that the sidewall like on a car

Or motorbike, could be kind of the best part of a centimeter thick. Yemen, as simple as our attention is relatively easy to do, whereas you’ve got a tire that weighs 240 grams. If you’re out on the construction of your tire by even a couple of millimeters,

I couldn’t make the difference between the tire retaining it or not retaining at all. So that I think there’s there are a lot more difficult to manufacture due to how kind of fine the margins are and how little material you’re playing with. Yeah, it’s it’s a tough thing to overcome.

I think it’s the questions that we get when people think how how much. Yeah and I could buy two car topics flat and awkward. Yeah. And I think the nice thing is though that you don’t always have to have an poshest tire in the rain. That is true.

There is always the next step down that will feature the technology from the the predecessor’s top empire. So what could appear to some people as a kind of average train and tire within a certain brand’s range, you’re actually getting what will probably a race tire find a six years ago.

So you’re getting really good technology. But after you make a really good point because in all particular circumstances where fairly, say a lead to a specialist bike shop, I suppose we really don’t sell anything in your lower ranges either. The steel bed is just a customers that come to them normally

And interested in a high performance. Yeah. Product. But where, where are your sales? I guess they’re not here. They’re in more of the mid-range. The gate to skin probably must be. It’s a relatively poor mid to

High end this kind of a lot of our sales but we do sell an awful lot of wire beads but it’s it’s the less exciting stuff that people don’t pay attention to that moves the workshops and shops are often shocked when they kind of drop back and go,

My God, I didn’t realize how many of these are we’ve been selling, right? Because it’s not something that they get excited about for their personal bike. Yeah. For someone who, again, just needs a bike as a mode of transport. Or maybe they’re on a tighter budget and they do a really good job.

A lot of. Yeah. Okay. Now, Spanner, now I want to ask you while I’ve got this opportunity about how close Chin Plus, etc.. Yeah, we’ve got a load of stuff that’s our controls language good are doing to try and make the whole situation easier for consumers but still got some questions about it

Before we get started on that deep and interesting subject. Yeah. Just very quickly, where do you personally stand on the whole in inner tube versus tubeless debate? Well, what do you have on your own bike? Well, so six years I’ve been on road tubeless. I come from a mountain bike background,

So I think I was far more accepting of big volumes and lower pressures. I can understand if you’ve been on a road bike for a long time and in achieve that on the job, it’s sometimes a bit of a hurdle to get over,

But I have very limited amount of time to ride my bike. I’m not going to put something on my bike. It doesn’t work. I want it to be the perform the best, but I also want it to be reliable as well. And I think just to be clear to our audience as well,

That that’s actually my similar background. I was always a mountain biker first, but I’ve been running mountain bike tubeless since I had 26 inch wheels. The old maverick USB keys. I’d actually always felt weird that road bike didn’t have less, have tubeless tires and so I was one of the very early

Adopters with the technology because of my mountain bikes had it. So that’s my background and I recognize that an awful lot of you, but I’m a very different background to the two of us. So of the focus is on the quite a lot in my world.

We’re not going to dwell too much on that. But what I want to do is use your knowledge about the market and what should we be looking for on the boxes to help us through this fall? Because I still think it’s a bit of a fog. Yeah, but it is getting better.

The more and more of you guys complain in the comments, more YouTube videos get made, more feedback you guys get, the better you’re making it. So talk me through what what do we have at the mike? What tools do we have written on the side which is written on the boxes?

What can we get our teeth into and go, Have I got the right tire? Have I got the right pressures? Yeah. Help us out. I think the first thing to mention is everyone’s as guilty as the next person. You get something, you, you get the instructions at the box and you toss it.

And then. And then you haul some and do what you’ve always done with. Yeah. Be a piece of IKEA furniture a lot of people are kind of unwilling to just stop and think. Let me read the instructions. So on the side of the TV 5000, I steal packaging.

Yeah, we have the grid that has the tick, the silhouettes for the two different written types. Yeah. So you’ll see a plus, which is referred to as sort of a straight size. And then you have hooked, which is two tube of crotchet or crochet. That’s all rims have been predominant.

And we’ll put some B-roll up of this to make sure. So. TSC Yeah, tubeless stripe side, yeah. Even on your box you say class. Yeah, but the test is the official terminology that the etato of decided to use. So we’re going to try and use the terminology of visual asset

And TSI to cheap. Is crotchet Yeah. Is for hot. Yes. Makes sense when you think about it. But I guess it’s just common terminology that you think the bike trade is going to have to start a stop machine rather than hook too close.

TSITSI Or do you think it’s going to be either has already been decided for us? I think everyone either has rims. Yeah. Or hopeless, right? So Hot Cross has established itself as the new kind of capsule name for anything that is a tube or straight on rim. So I think it’s here.

It’s here to stay. Those neighbors, regardless of what Ethiopia was. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So one mistake on the side then. So we had this chart here, but we have this thing ingrained in ourselves. I think getting the now the 73 I or 72.5 is the absolute marks.

Yeah. That’s been set by 80 RCO House. Yes. Yeah. But not all of your tires are 73 marks. No. So 73. The five ball. The 73 is the, the, the hook was maximum pressure. Obviously like when you have an inner tube, the bigger

The volume, the tire you have, the lower the max pressure on the theater. So again, it’s following exactly the same rules we’ve all followed for years. But I think people see something new and just panic and see the biggest number. It’s it’s not the target.

It’s a maximum pressure you has The thing actually has a good does good work. Do you got two ties on there just to show and again, we’ll get some B-roll up here So on the good guys you have tests and it’s written off

They call their 65 piece I yeah so to see that one’s a 34 mil tire. I think so with it being such a big row tire, you have a lower. Yeah. So this is the 34 millimeter. We sell these for people who ride like track the monies, perhaps people

Who are riding gravel bikes. But then want a ride, tire, etc.. So the max on this is actually 66 PSC, regardless of whether it’s TSA or TSA. Yes, that’s so. And still shouldn’t go anywhere near the 73. That’s the max. Yeah right. And the continental that you’ve got and your that. Yes. 30.

Yeah. Which I mean I’ve talked on the channel before that if they run in hopeless probably they should start at 30. Probably the one where almost regardless of the rider’s weight you’re going to be running a pressure lower than the maximum, It gives you a broader options for setup for different rider weights.

Definitely. Yeah. Whereas the 28 and definitely 25, you’ve got to be really careful because you can with the right pressure for your weight in like a Rams. Yes you can. Very quickly the system can run out of options for certain riders. Yeah.

So we tend to sell here in the shop now hopeless stuff starting at 30 and we’ll only really get to ten if someone asks for and we run through, the you know, this is the pressure you should be running, etc.. So anyway, going back to that,

The the pressure on that one I think is 73 and it’s written on the side isn’t it. So yeah. Again. So safety factors. Yes. The faster now the is a safety factor is plus 10% shut and that is not a 110% above the maximum IEEE

156 that is 10% as in 18.6 pass I. Yes I is the absolute We would expect to blow off and it makes sense to me because in the past within a tubes of his said maximum pressure 115 I would not be inflating that to 200. So yeah exactly.

I mean in our in the columns factory they do a lot of tests. Yeah. Historically although I’ve always seen it with a that’s the doctrine. Yeah. Cheap the Chivas crotchet style but they do it with water not air. Right. So there’s no horrendous buying when it goes off. And some of the numbers

I’ve seen on a digital scale before a tire comes off the rebar. Terrifying. Right? It was like an atomic bomb going off if that was error. Jesus. Yeah. So it’s it’s good to know that the testing is there, but the safety factors are set individually by the manufacturers,

But the actual ISO one, yeah, it was only 10% so you might say in certain combinations, but I guess you’ll put to some of that a safety factor in the hands of the manufacturer then. Yeah. Like, like, like all your brands and all tire brands following the ISO, the utility rules,

There is a window that you’re allowed to manufacture within tolerance wise called the hand Goodyear. With them being both automotive firms, they will always air on the side of caution because you want the product to be safe as well to perform well on the bike. So I know the ISO max

Plus 10% again is just a for these two brands is not a I’ll that’s what we’ll do It’s we see that and we have to go further to guarantee our product is very safe. Yes I don’t have the exact numbers I mean I hope I wouldn’t expect it yet. I know. Yeah.

That that wasn’t what they as the two brands aimed for. They went much further than that. Yeah. I think getting this information now So the Continental website looks to be getting very very good with the recommended pressures and stuff. You haven’t got your own tire pressure calculator. Yeah I don’t think not.

But it’s all been on the side of the boxes and on the website. Yeah same with the Goodyear I think the and the website in the same image they actually have all got very good websites with recommended pressures and, I just want to throw out one little discrepancy

That we sort of joked about it. I read the instructions, as you guys know from this channel, Ralf says most of the people throw these instructions away, the on paper instructions, these are just a generic instructions that go in. All I think is I to the previous funk of ISO rules. Right. Okay.

So say they are currently outdated for tubeless road tires. Yeah. Yeah. So if you got those go. If you’re not unsure, go by the awesome written on the actual box. What’s written on the actual tire and what’s written on the actual website. And these are probably just generic.

Yeah, it’s, it’s a cathode for every single so we kind of throw them away. Yeah. Co op said How are you getting on with these. These were launch the market fairly recently. What they. Yeah. We have been having great success in this shop

Because of our unique circumstances with the connector on the back and the peak on the front passenger and working amazingly well for light district. Yeah. Riding conditions. But how are your gravel tires in the market. What’s what’s been the what’s been the feedback the connectors the standout one in terms of sales. Okay.

I think that’s purely because it’s a great intermediate tread pattern. I would say with you guys in the likes, for a lot of the riding, you’re probably at the very limit of what a gravel bike’s capable of. We call it chunky gravel. Yeah, there’s not much easy stuff in the Lake District School.

And again, with you saying you come from a mountain bike background, you tend to be a bit more open to kind of a rare set bit with tread patterns and more aggressive cut patterns themselves. So what we see a lot of events is that people who’ve come into gravel

From a road background tend to be very nervous about mixing and matching their tires in terms of mountains. But all over it probably wouldn’t affect a lot of them because of the style they in the way that they would ride

The bike off road compared to a mountain bike where X mountain biker would ride, it would be pushing over the front wheel a lot more. So you want that kind of more aggressive front. FROST Is that interesting that you say you guys should then see?

Some of you might say if you go to a sporty gravel event, you’re normally there with a Continental or Goodyear ten and you get to meet a lot of riders. Actually, it must be really good for your job is to get that feedback on our stuff.

Is that Doncaster put you down quite a lot from there. You do. What I would say a lot of is the biggest takeaway is no one knows what pressure they’re running in the tires. could be £1,000 bike, it could be a £10,000 bike.

And the general rule of thumb is, well, they come over to you. Can you check my practice before I go off? No problem at all. What do you run? I don’t know. I stick my thumb in the top of the tire. Right.

Having a coffee, we often will have a road tire with 50 piece solid and I will get them to put their thumb on it and say, How much do you think is in there? And go, 90, 100. And you show them it’s 50.

And it’s the thing We used to kind of shock them into trying to pay attention interest in because it’s not only a safety factor, it’s also a performance factor. The tires, the soft you’re edging closer to it. Wanted to pull off a run because it’s operating outside of its window of the zone.

But then also you’re losing your performance in terms of rolling speed tires. So interest in, you know, what, the amount of people I know that are brought like things like track the order is in light lot suspension stems and stuff. I can just just take temper slightly tires. Yeah yeah.

I mean most WorldTour teams have a wet and dry for the brands we represent. They will have a wet and dry pressure and as a rule of thumb, the wet brushes about 10% less. But what comes out of your thumb rust into the tire.

So you have to have a number the back crackle. Yeah. And we don’t need much work with sort of the protesters and say what they run and how they how much science they put into that tire pressure is a tall number. So just as an example, use the INEOS team.

Yeah everyone saw Tom Petty cos the sand on the outdoors the last year he was on the GP 5000. That’s the US again. He comes from a massive white cross background so he’s, he’s very accepting on what is new technology to road bikes but he’s also very accepting of an engine

And saying to him for your weight, this is where we think you should set it up great, no problem. Or some of the older riders towards the end of the career initially were a little bit hesitant, but they’ve seen the data and the science. Now it’s it it’s totally provable.

We had a video out fairly recently in the US Engineers and Dunvegan performance engineer. They won the contest. It’s called the drone test area, where they test all the high performance cars and that is a huge bank of testing Bay Aero and rolling resistance on all different road surfaces.

They got set up so they could do pre-season checks for like Flanders on a purpose built cobbled section, winterized. So they really went into a lot of detail. That’s incredible to have access to that sort of information as well. And I can imagine that, yeah,

The proto athletes are much more open, but show me the data. Okay, I’ll try it. Yeah, the younger ones, definitely. It’s all about numbers. It at a competitive advantage they can find. Yeah they want it. There’s there’s nothing about all 2020.

The guy used to race in Belgium in the eighties who’s now a mechanic, says this is the best it’s what does the lab tell us is the best will go with it. Interest in shifting in mindset there. Yeah absolutely yeah I think it’s going to a lot of talk

A shift in mindsets and a big shift in mindsets. And rightly or wrongly it’s yeah, who knows. So on the bombshell is hopeless here to stay as far as we know. Yes it’s is very much been driven by wheel runs and I think there’s some irons to run with understanding with the customers.

But generally we see the feedback from people is that you hear all these horror stories about a tire came off in a race, but you look at a lot of the comments and the majority of people say, I’ve been running a reputable tire brand with a reputable wheel brand

And it’s been absolutely flawless. When he set it up correctly. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us today. You know, Ernie really appreciated you guys. Got any comments? Please get them down below. It will communicate and add to that discussion as we go.

If you found this useful, please give it a big thumbs up, share it like it and all that sort of stuff. And I look forward to reading what you have to say to us. Thanks a lot